Quiet Bravery

One of the quiet joys of writing is discovering how readers see your work differently than you do.

Recently, I received a review of Finding Tommy that stopped me cold. Not because it praised the book in sweeping terms, but because it noticed something small. Something intimate. Something I almost didn’t realize I was doing when I wrote it.

There’s a moment in Finding Tommy where stepping off a street corner becomes an act of courage not because it’s dramatic, but because it’s deeply personal.

Entering the gayborhood.
Choosing visibility.
Deciding to be seen.

That moment matters to me because it reflects a truth many LGBTQ+ people recognize immediately. Visibility is not a switch you flip once and never think about again. It is a series of choices. Some loud. Some quiet. Some as simple as where you walk, who you walk with, and whether you allow yourself to be known.

The reviewer went on to say:

That quiet bravery sets the tone for a story where two men, walking separate paths toward love, discover that timing, identity, and even death itself aren’t always the final obstacles we think they are.

Finding Tommy was never meant to be a story about grand gestures alone. It is about recognition. About longing. About the sense that someone meant for you exists, even when logic insists they shouldn’t.

It is also about change. About what happens when love crosses boundaries we are taught to believe are permanent. Past and present intertwine. One person crosses to the other side… and comes back altered. Not broken. Not erased. Just changed.

That tension between who we were, who we are, and who we dare to become is at the heart of this book and, in many ways, at the heart of the entire Prospect Tower series.

I am deeply grateful to readers who notice the quiet moments. The street corners. The pauses. The decisions to step forward rather than turn away.

Those moments are where the story truly lives.

If you haven’t gotten your copy, do it today.

Thank you for reading.

Mj